Ideas and Their Representations in Thought, Speech, and Writing in the Book of Esther and Beyond

Table of Contents

• The midrash of the giving of the Torah and the angels
• Philosophical examples: light, sound, and perception as clothing
• The reason of the verse as the relationship between essence and clothing
• The author of the Tanya: thought, speech, and action as the garments of the Torah
• Thought as a level above which there is yet another level: Zen as mediation
• The Rashba, the Sha’agat Aryeh, and Tosafot: contemplation, language, and two tiers within thought
• Additional layers in verbal clothing and Bialik’s “Revelation and Concealment in Language”
• The holy tongue: Maimonides, Nachmanides, the Ramak, and Rabbi HaNazir
• The Shema in any language and the Megillah in a foreign language: Maimonides, Raavad, and the Maggid Mishneh
• The Written Torah versus the Oral Torah: the sanctity of wording and the sanctity of content
• Purim as the seam line between prophecy and wisdom, and the acceptance of the Oral Torah
• The Scroll of Esther: “Write me for future generations,” impurity of the hands, and book versus letter
• Ruled lines in the Megillah: “like the truth of Torah” and the Brisker approach
• In the future to come, and a text generator attributed to Rabbi Kook

Summary

General Overview

The text presents a view according to which every understanding and reception of an idea requires that the thing be “clothed” in a conceptual system. Therefore, the Torah’s descent into the world is not a geographical transition but a change of garment, from a highly abstract level to human levels of thought, speech, and action. It illustrates this through philosophical conceptions of sensation and language, disputes among medieval authorities (Rishonim) about contemplation and language, and essays on the gap between an idea and its formulation, arriving at the claim that Purim and the Scroll of Esther stand on the boundary line between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. It connects the status of the holy tongue and the sanctity of wording to the distinction between the sanctity of script and the sanctity of content, and argues that the Scroll of Esther is a “book and a letter,” an intermediate stage that prepares consciousness for the idea that Torah can also be created by human beings and still be considered Torah.

The midrash of the giving of the Torah and the angels

The text brings the aggadah in tractate Shabbat 88b, where the angels protest the giving of the Torah to flesh and blood, and Moses answers them from the verses themselves of the Ten Commandments. The text argues that the apparent banality of Moses’ answer does not fit the drama of the angels’ claim and the awe that is described, and therefore the dispute must be understood as revolving around the very mode in which the Torah appears. The text explains that the Torah “above” is a system of abstract ideas, and when it “descends” it becomes clothed in a human conceptual system such as honoring father and mother, the Sabbath, theft, and murder. The text argues that even the angels do not study “abstract” Torah without clothing, but rather Torah clothed in garments relevant to their world. Therefore, the angels and Moses each hold the Torah as it is embodied in the clothing appropriate to them, not Torah detached from all clothing.

Philosophical examples: light, sound, and perception as clothing

The text cites Bertrand Russell, saying that a statement like “light is an electromagnetic wave” misses the fact that light is a sensation in consciousness created when an electromagnetic wave strikes the retina, whereas in physical reality there is only a wave. The text adds an example of a tree falling in a forest and argues that there is no “sound” without consciousness that receives an acoustic wave through the eardrum, and therefore sound exists only in consciousness and not in the world itself. The text presents the “philosophers’ palace” to show that people can agree verbally on “red” and still have completely different inner experiences that there is no way to verify or bridge. The text uses Kant’s distinction between noumena and phenomena and argues that perception by definition is a clothing of the thing in the conceptual system of the perceiver, so that the question “what is the table itself” without concepts of color and shape is meaningless.

The reason of the verse as the relationship between essence and clothing

The text presents the question of the reason of the verse as a parable in which the law is the practical garment of the reason, and the reason is the essence that the law expresses in the world of action. The text illustrates this through the dispute over “Do not take a widow’s garment as collateral,” presenting Rabbi Shimon as someone who sees the law as not the main point but rather the practical expression of preventing suspicion, whereas Rabbi Yehuda does not derive law from the reason. The text uses this example to formulate the idea that the Torah’s instructions appear in the world as acts and laws that are garments for a more abstract content.

The author of the Tanya: thought, speech, and action as the garments of the Torah

The text brings chapter 4 of the Tanya, according to which the divine soul has three garments: thought, speech, and action of the 613 commandments of the Torah, and through them a person apprehends and fulfills the Torah. The text quotes that the Torah is compared to water that descends from a high place to a low one, and describes a gradual clothing until it became clothed in material things and combinations of letters. The text emphasizes the Tanya’s assertion that “no thought can grasp Him at all” except when thought clothes itself in Torah and commandments, and that cleaving is like embracing the king through his garments, with no difference between one garment and many garments, since the king’s body is within them. The text concludes that without clothing there is no grasping and no embrace, and that the garments are not a “reflection” that distances one from the thing, but the very mode in which the thing is grasped and held.

Thought as a level above which there is yet another level: Zen as mediation

The text cites Eugen Herrigel in the book “Zen in the Art of Archery” and describes how a Zen teacher presents paths such as fencing, flower arranging, and archery as different media for learning the very same thing. The text argues that the practical and conceptual rules of each field are a garment that makes it possible to convey an abstract content not dependent on that specific medium. The text uses this to establish that even the “ideas” themselves, meaning thought, are a garment for something more abstract, and therefore there is no stopping point at which one reaches the thing without clothing.

The Rashba, the Sha’agat Aryeh, and Tosafot: contemplation, language, and two tiers within thought

The text presents the Mishnah in Berakhot 15 about “one who recited the Shema without making it audible to his ear,” and Rabbi Yosi’s derivation from “Hear” that one must make it audible to his ear. The text brings the Rashba, who struggles with the idea of “you learn two things from it,” and explains that since “in any language that you hear” is derived, it follows automatically that one must make it audible to his ear, because if audibility were not required, even contemplation of the heart would suffice, and in contemplation “language is not relevant.” The text brings the Sha’agat Aryeh, who is astonished by the Rashba and argues that language is relevant even in contemplation, and brings the Rashash’s proof from Tosafot on Shabbat 40b, which distinguishes even in contemplation between the holy tongue and a vernacular language. The text proposes that the Rashba is not factually denying that one can think in words, but normatively determining that a law concerning thought refers to the level of abstract thought and not to its verbal representation. From this it follows that thought itself is divided into a layer of abstract content and a layer of verbal formulation.

Additional layers in verbal clothing and Bialik’s “Revelation and Concealment in Language”

The text argues that even when thought clothes itself in words, there are still further gaps between words as they are thought, as they are spoken, and as they are written, and it presents writing as a more constricted clothing than speech because it lacks tone, intonation, and body language. The text quotes from Bialik’s “Revelation and Concealment in Language,” according to which a person imagines that he is transmitting thought over an “iron bridge,” but the bridge is shaky and an abyss gapes beneath it, and that “language in all its combinations does not bring us at all into the inner domain of another… on the contrary, it itself interposes.” The text uses this to describe the unavoidable gaps between an inner source and its representations, and to explain why this is true of every garment, not only verbal clothing.

The holy tongue: Maimonides, Nachmanides, the Ramak, and Rabbi HaNazir

The text brings Maimonides in the Guide for the Perplexed, who explains “the holy tongue” by saying that no name was assigned in it to the sexual organs and to acts connected with reproduction, and instead it uses euphemisms and hints, and therefore it is a clean language. The text notes that Nachmanides disagrees and argues that the holy tongue is called that because the Holy One, blessed be He, uses it, and not for the technical reason of cleanliness. The text brings in the name of the Ramak in Tomer Devorah that all languages are conventional and there is no essential connection between the word and the content, whereas in the holy tongue there is an essential connection between the content and the utterance when the Holy One, blessed be He, writes the Torah, so that the gap between content and verbal clothing disappears in this language. The text adds that Rabbi HaNazir in Kol HaNevuah brings halakhic implications of this conception and emphasizes that even if the holy tongue is unique in itself, for human beings there still remains a gap between the desire to say something and its verbal expression.

The Shema in any language and the Megillah in a foreign language: Maimonides, Raavad, and the Maggid Mishneh

The text brings Maimonides in the laws of reciting the Shema, who permits it to be read in any language one understands and requires precision in that language just as in the holy tongue. The text brings the Raavad’s objection, “This is not acceptable to the mind,” because all other languages are interpretations, and “who can be exact about its interpretation,” and presents this as depending on the question whether the wording itself has sanctity and significance or only the content does. The text brings the Maggid Mishneh in the laws of the Megillah, who says it appears from Rashi that even one who knows Assyrian script can fulfill the obligation in a vernacular language, but the Jerusalem Talmud implies otherwise, and explains this as a distinction according to which in the holy tongue there is value in the wording even without full understanding, whereas in other languages the essence of fulfillment is understanding the content. In this way the text establishes a foundation for the distinction between the sanctity of wording in the Written Torah and the sanctity of content in the Oral Torah.

The Written Torah versus the Oral Torah: the sanctity of wording and the sanctity of content

The text argues that the Written Torah bears meaning and sanctity in the wording itself, and therefore one is precise about the letters and expounds the words, and any change in wording loses the sanctity of the Written Torah even if the content is understood. The text argues that the Oral Torah is the sanctity of content, and therefore translating the Talmud into English or reformulating it does not impair the sanctity so long as the content is preserved, while the wording is an incidental clothing of ideas formulated by human beings. The text brings the Talmud in Gittin: “matters that are written you are not permitted to say orally; matters that are oral you are not permitted to write,” and cites the Tur in Orach Chayim, section 49, who is lenient about saying familiar verses by heart out of concern for confusion in the wording. The text suggests that the prohibition against writing the Oral Torah was also intended to prevent a conception of sanctity of wording in place of sanctity of content, and it describes the historical transition in which the Oral Torah ceased to be merely “Torah and its explanation” and became a binding human creation.

Purim as the seam line between prophecy and wisdom, and the acceptance of the Oral Torah

The text argues that Purim stands historically and essentially between the age of prophecy and the close of the holy writings on the one hand, and the beginning of the age of the Oral Torah in the Second Temple period on the other. The text brings midrashim and the Maharal, who explain “they established and accepted” as a renewed acceptance of the Oral Torah, because accepting the laws of Purim and the Scroll of Esther means accepting laws not written in the Torah as binding like Torah. The text suggests that the claim that both Torahs were given to Moses at Sinai is an expression that became necessary in order to allow acceptance of Torah created by human beings, and it presents “he used to say” in relation to Shimon the Righteous as opening a new consciousness in which Torah is not only transmission but also saying and creation. The text connects to this topics such as the oven of Akhnai as mechanisms that institutionalize the idea that both Torahs have status and sanctity, but in different modes: sanctity of wording versus sanctity of content.

The Scroll of Esther: “Write me for future generations,” impurity of the hands, and book versus letter

The text brings the Talmud in Megillah 7a: “Esther sent to the sages: establish me for future generations,” and “write me for future generations,” and presents this as a demand that a human-made festival and scroll enter the list of festivals and the holy writings, something that in earlier consciousness would have seemed close to adding to the Torah. The text describes the discussion whether Esther “renders the hands impure” as depending on the question whether “it was said with divine inspiration,” and brings the parallel discussion about Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, that “because they are Solomon’s wisdom,” they do not render the hands impure according to one opinion. The text brings Maimonides in the laws of the other primary sources of impurity, who rules that “all the holy writings, even Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, which are words of wisdom, render the hands impure,” and concludes that in the age of the Oral Torah even “words of wisdom” receive the status of Torah. The text presents the laws of reading the Megillah in the Shulchan Arukh, section 690, as an intentional paradox: one must hear every word, yet after the fact the Megillah may be missing many words and the reader completes them orally. It interprets this as an intermediate status in which the Megillah is not a full “book” of sanctity of wording like the Written Torah, but a writing of sanctified content. The text brings “the Megillah is called a book and is called a letter,” and explains that a letter is intended only to transmit content, whereas a book has value in itself. Therefore, intentional halakhic differences are preserved between a Megillah and a Torah scroll to express that it stands between a book and a letter.

Ruled lines in the Megillah: “like the truth of Torah” and the Brisker approach

The text brings the Talmud in Megillah 16b: “words of peace and truth… this teaches that it requires ruled lines like the truth of Torah,” and Rashi, who explains that this means like a Torah scroll. The text presents Tosafot’s difficulty: if the Megillah is called a book, then one should have learned the requirement of ruled lines from the law of a book without the need for a special exposition. It adds that Maimonides writes “like a Torah scroll” regarding ink and parchment, but separately adds, “and it requires ruled lines like Torah itself.” The text brings in the name of Rabbi Chaim of Brisk that ruled lines are not a law of a “book” but a law of “written sanctified content,” and connects this to Mar Ukva, who ruled lines for verses in a letter of peace. Therefore, the Megillah needs a special exposition because it is not a Torah scroll but sanctified content that has been written down. The text concludes that the Scroll of Esther prepares the ground for the conception that sacred content can be written without becoming a book in the full sense of the Written Torah, and in this way it heralds the emergence of the Oral Torah.

In the future to come, and a text generator attributed to Rabbi Kook

The text brings Maimonides in the laws of the Megillah: “All the books of the prophets and all the writings are destined to be nullified in the days of the Messiah except for the Scroll of Esther… like the Five Books of the Torah and like the laws of the Oral Torah, which are never nullified,” and explains that the Megillah remains because it joins the sanctity of wording in writing with the sanctity of content of the Oral Torah. The text concludes with a passage attributed to Rabbi Kook and reveals that it is a product of a “random text generator,” suggesting that one examine the meaning of ideas that seem profound even when the wording is generated randomly, as a return to the question of the relationship between an idea and the speech that represents it. The text closes: “Happy Purim.”

Okay, I want to deal with… the title is a bit vague. I want to deal with representations of ideas, and the relation between representations of ideas, especially as this applies—or I’m mainly referring—to the unfolding of the Torah from some higher levels of abstraction down to lower levels, and the excuse for talking about this now is that around Purim and the Scroll of Esther it seems to me there are a few aspects of this issue that are illustrated there, but the discussion will be a bit broader. So maybe I’ll begin with a well-known Talmudic passage in tractate Shabbat, page 88. I didn’t photocopy all the sources because I didn’t want to go beyond two pages, but it appears there. The first source you have: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: At the hour when Moses ascended on high, the ministering angels said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the Universe, what is one born of woman doing among us? He said to them: He has come to receive the Torah. They said before Him: A treasured delight that was hidden away with You nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the world was created—you seek to give it to flesh and blood? “What is man that You should remember him, and the son of man that You should take note of him? Lord our Master, how mighty is Your name in all the earth—place Your glory upon the heavens.” The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: Answer them. He said before Him: Master of the Universe, I fear lest they burn me with the breath of their mouths. He said to him: Hold on to My throne of glory and answer them, as it is said, “He grasps the face of the throne, spreading His cloud over it.” He said before Him: Master of the Universe, the Torah that You are giving me—what is written in it? “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” He said to them: Did you go down to Egypt? Were you enslaved to Pharaoh? Why should the Torah be for you? Again, what is written in it? “You shall have no other gods.” Do you dwell among nations that worship idols? Again, what is written in it? “Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it.” Do you perform labor that you need rest? Again, what is written in it? “You shall not take…” Do you conduct business dealings among yourselves? Again, what is written in it? “Honor your father and your mother.” Do you have a father and mother? “You shall not murder,” “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not steal,” and so on. Okay, this is an aggadic midrash, but it still needs explaining. We need to understand, first, what the midrash is trying to say, and second—and related to that, it seems to me—what exactly the angels’ claim was. Meaning, the trembling and awe described here at the beginning of this midrash don’t fit the banality of the answer. Right? That’s obvious. In other words, what did the angels want? Do they have father and mother, that honoring father and mother should apply to them? It sounds a bit banal. Meaning, obviously—it’s a self-evident answer. What, he has to hold onto the throne of glory, and he’s afraid they’ll burn him with the breath of their mouths, and all sorts of things like that, and in the end we get something that’s just a simple answer? Or better, let me ask it differently: the angels supposedly dealt with Torah until it was given below. What exactly were they dealing with? Did they study honoring father and mother? Did they study “you shall not murder” and “you shall not commit adultery”? What relevance do all these things have to angels? So it seems to me that the obvious interpretation of this midrash is that it’s really saying that the descent of the Torah downward, or the giving of the Torah, the bringing of the Torah down to earth, wasn’t just a geographical transfer. Meaning, yes—from above the Torah was in potential energy, and then it came down below. Rather, this transition involved the Torah being clothed in a conceptual system connected to our world, to human beings, to our lives. In other words, the Torah at its source is some collection of abstract ideas not connected either to father and mother or to murder, theft, and things like that, but rather some sort of abstract ideas. I’m not… in a moment I’ll explain why I can’t say more than that. And when it came down here, it found expression—or was clothed—in terms of honoring father and mother, “you shall not murder,” keeping the Sabbath, and so on. So what did the angels study before the Torah was given on earth? They apparently studied some other Torah. It’s tempting maybe to say they studied that same abstract Torah before it was clothed here in human garments. But I don’t think that’s right. They studied a Torah clothed in garments relevant to them, because you can’t study a Torah that isn’t clothed at all, as I’ll try to explain in a moment. Torah always has to be clothed in order for it to be studied. Only in our world it’s clothed in a human conceptual system, the conceptual system of our world. In the world of the angels it’s clothed in a different conceptual system, that of the world of formation, creation, and the sefirot and so on—I don’t know—various other conceptual systems. And when the angels say to the Holy One, blessed be He, suddenly You’re giving Torah to human beings, bringing Torah down below, they’re really asking the same question that Moses asks with respect to them. In their Torah it says, yes, whenever you encounter Beauty, half-right, then you need to repair Eternity within Splendor. Meaning, that’s the principle written there. But wait—you’re bringing this down below—what does that have to do with those people down there? “Place Your glory upon the heavens”—after all, these statements, maybe commandments, I don’t know whether they were commandments or not, aren’t connected to the world of human beings. So what does Moses answer them? What does honoring father and mother have to do with you? Or “you shall not murder,” or “you shall not steal”? Because they were looking at the Torah as clothed in their own conceptual system, and then it really isn’t relevant here. And Moses says to them: Look, but the Torah I’m receiving is clothed in a conceptual system that has nothing to do with you at all; it’s relevant only to us. So it comes out that neither side really holds the Torah itself; rather, they hold the Torah as embodied or clothed in a conceptual system suited to them. One in the worlds of formation and creation, the other in the world of action. But these are only different garments of the Torah. Maybe to illustrate this point I’ll need a few examples in a broader context. There’s a well-known British philosopher named Bertrand Russell, and he wrote a book called The Problems of Philosophy, one of his books—he’s also a mathematician—and there he asks: what is light? Meaning, when you ask a contemporary person what light is, a lot of people will answer: it’s an electromagnetic wave. Light is an electromagnetic wave. That’s nonsense, of course. Light is not an electromagnetic wave. Light is the sensation produced in our consciousness when an electromagnetic wave strikes our retina. But light exists only in our consciousness; there is no light in the world itself. In the world itself there is an electromagnetic wave. That gets translated in our consciousness into light, because that’s how our sensory system is built. It hits the retina, sends signals to the brain, the brain decodes it in some way, and in the end in our consciousness, in our intellect, I don’t know wherever it may be, on the mental level, we see a phenomenon that we call light. It has no essential connection to the electromagnetic wave. The electromagnetic wave is basically clothed here in a conceptual system that comes from us, that is ours alone, not connected to it at all. Meaning, if there were another creature for whom the electromagnetic wave—meaning if his eyes, or optic nerve, were connected in his brain to the auditory center—then he would hear electromagnetic waves, not see them. And then the electromagnetic wave would be translated for him into sound and not light. And he would be no less correct than we are, for whom it is translated into light. Both of us are right—or in other words, neither of us is right. An electromagnetic wave is neither this nor that. An electromagnetic wave is some physical phenomenon that exists in the world, assuming there is such a thing and that physics is right. But the images or sounds, the sensations, the perceptions we produce when we encounter this physical phenomenon—we call that light or sound and so on. Yes, that question people have played around with quite a bit: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it make a sound? Obviously the answer is no, it doesn’t make any sound. There’s no question at all. Because all it does is move the air; there’s an acoustic wave there. But as long as there’s no eardrum there for that acoustic wave to hit, no sound is produced. Sound exists only in our consciousness; there is no sound in the world. In the world there is an acoustic wave. In our consciousness there is sound, because the acoustic wave strikes the human eardrum—or not only human—an eardrum, and then it creates sound. But sound and appearance and colors and everything that… that we usually attribute to the world itself—all of it exists only in our consciousness. None of it exists in the world. In the world itself there is a sequence of physical phenomena—again, under the optimistic assumption that there is something like that there—a collection of physical phenomena, whose picture, when they are clothed in the system of garments or concepts of the human being, is the picture we call sound and light and appearance and taste and smell and all our other senses. It’s all a function of us. If there were creatures endowed with a different sensory system, then they would have a completely different picture of the world. By the way, there’s a very well-known question sometimes called the philosophers’ palace. The philosophers’ palace is the question that, say, I—yes, we all see something that is red. We agree that it’s red. The question is whether we all see the same color. Meaning, maybe you’re talking about the color red, but what you see in your consciousness is what I call green. But you got used from the day you were born to calling that color red. And we talk to each other, and we always agree: whatever I call red, you also call red; whatever I call green, you also call green—but it may be that what we’re seeing is completely different. We’re synchronized on the level of speech, but what we actually see is utterly different. There’s no way to bridge that gap between the speech and the idea that the speech expresses. Meaning, we can’t know whether the other person who speaks about the color red really sees the same thing we see when we speak about the color red. More than that: we also have no way of knowing—going back to what I said before—whether when I speak about the color red and the other person speaks about the color red, it isn’t that he’s actually hearing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and calling that seeing the color red. He’s simply used to calling that seeing the color red—that’s what the words “seeing the color red” mean for him. And every time I see something red, he hears Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony—but he’s used to calling that seeing the color red. So he always says he sees red, and so do I. We agree completely, but what we’re really seeing is entirely different. I think at least—I’m not familiar with one—I don’t think there is a known way to test or verify that we really experience the same experiences or know the same perceptions. We describe things in the same language, but we don’t experience the same things. So this is actually an example, an example of concepts being clothed, and it doesn’t belong to lofty worlds that sound like mysticism—Torah and angels and all sorts of exalted things where you can always hang all kinds of vaguely defined notions. Our whole world is a world of garments. Without something being clothed in something, we can’t grasp it. Kant made a distinction between the thing in itself and the thing as I perceive it. Yes, the noumenon is the thing in itself, and the phenomenon is how I perceive the thing. Now many think that this distinction is a human limitation. We can’t grasp the thing itself; we grasp only the way it appears to us. Suppose I want to describe this table, so I say: the table has a rectangular shape, light brown color, such-and-such legs, such-and-such form, and so on—which of course is all only a description in concepts drawn from my cognitive world. There’s no certainty at all that someone else saying the same words experiences the same experience. So when I ask, okay, then what is the color of the table itself—not the color I see the table as having—that’s a meaningless question. The table itself has no color. Color is only the thing produced in a human consciousness looking at the table. The table itself has no color. Therefore this distinction between the thing itself and the thing as I perceive it is not a distinction that stems from human limitation. It’s not because I can’t grasp the table itself that I’m forced against my will to grasp it through limited means. Perception by definition—perception is always through the means of the perceiver. That’s not a limitation. That’s what perception is. What it means to perceive something is to describe it in the conceptual system of the perceiver. Now there may be perceivers who are limited, so they won’t perceive everything. Obviously there are limitations too. A blind person doesn’t perceive at all the element that I see. He doesn’t perceive it differently; he doesn’t perceive it at all. Okay. So there are limitations in perception. I’m only saying that the very fact that I perceive things in my own conceptual system is not a limitation. That’s not a limitation. That’s what it means to perceive, to perceive something. It is solely and exclusively to clothe it within my conceptual system. That’s what perceiving means. It’s not a limitation; it’s called perceiving. And when someone asks me what the table itself is—not the table as I perceive it—there’s no way to answer except by saying, yes, the table itself is light brown and such-and-such a shape—and that’s the table in my language and conceptual system. Because only that way can I speak. Otherwise, in what sense are you asking me what the table itself is? In what language do you want the answer? You always have to assume some language when you deal with this system, and therefore it seems to me there is here some kind of—I don’t know whether it’s a parable or actually the thing itself—there is no way to grasp something except by clothing it in the conceptual system of the perceiver. I call it “clothing,” following the author of the Tanya, but it seems to me it’s not a bad term. In other words, I’m basically taking—if I go back to this midrash in tractate Shabbat that I read at the beginning—the Torah was some abstract thing, and the Holy One, blessed be He, brings it down to earth, meaning He gives it to human beings so they can engage in it. The moment He wants to give it to human beings so they can engage in it, then clearly it gets clothed in a human conceptual system. In the real sense there’s no descent here at all. It’s the Torah itself; it’s just that human beings, when they grasp it, grasp it in that conceptual system. A person with eyes and ears grasps things in terms of sights and sounds. If there’s some other alien with a different sensory system, then he’ll grasp those same things themselves in a completely different way. Or he’ll turn sounds into sights and vice versa, or maybe he’ll have—I don’t know—some entirely different senses that are totally unknown to us, and he’ll grasp the thing in another system. Does that mean he doesn’t grasp it correctly? Or that he grasps it less well than I do? Absolutely not. He grasps exactly what I grasp, only he grasps it in his own conceptual system. In that sense, then, the clothing of the Torah is not really a descent in the sense in which we usually think of it, as if the Torah deteriorates. The Torah descends lower and lower. This Torah is that very same Torah; it’s not another Torah. It’s the same Torah, only in the conceptual system down here these are the garments that wrap it. Meaning, that’s how it appears. In other words, something cannot appear before a human being who has eyes and ears unless it has sight and sound. That’s all. So it has to receive sight and sound in order for a human being endowed with eyes and ears to be able to grasp it. Therefore Moses and the angels are really speaking about exactly the same Torah. Bringing the Torah down below—that is the same Torah, not a different one. It’s just that the Torah is clothed in a different language, and the mistake of the angels, and maybe also of Moses—I don’t know whether he answers them with the conclusion or whether he answers them with another mistake and the conclusion is the product of the two positions—is that in fact the Torah is neither of the two garments. The Torah is what is clothed in those garments. And in that sense it is exactly the same Torah. So the angels see it one way and we see it another—so what? Of course a crude parable for this is the question of the reason for the verse, the rationale of the verse. The question of the rationale of the verse is basically: what is a reason? What is the relationship between the reason and the law? The law is merely the garment that the reason receives in our world. In other words, let’s say—I don’t know—“You shall not take a widow’s garment as a pledge.” Yes, you may not take collateral from a widow. On that Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yehuda disagree regarding the rationale of the verse. So the question is whether the prohibition on taking a widow’s garment as collateral is because you would bring a bad name upon her among her neighbors. Meaning, if you have to return it to her at night, as one returns a pledge to a poor person, people will start suspecting there’s something going on between you. Therefore they said not to take collateral from a poor widow—that’s Rabbi Shimon’s position, who interprets the reason of the verse. Rabbi Yehuda does not interpret the reason of the verse. But let’s stay with Rabbi Shimon for a moment. What is Rabbi Shimon basically telling us? That in fact the law not to take collateral from a widow is not the essence of the matter at all. The point is not the act itself; the point is to avoid suspicion of a relationship between the man and that woman, between him and that widow. This gets clothed in the system of actions—meaning, how does it find practical expression? By not taking a pledge from her so that you won’t have to return it. The reason is always really the essence of the thing, and the law is the way that essence finds expression. Meaning, how it gets clothed in the practical world. And there’s a question here—do we derive the reason of the verse or not? Those who don’t may really not understand the relationship this way, but Rabbi Shimon certainly does, and for my purposes that’s enough, because I’m using this only as an example. I once gave a class here about the rationale of the verse and I think I explained the other views too. So this means that the Torah—let’s call it descending—maybe getting clothed in different garments according to the place where it is: among the angels one garment, among human beings another garment, but it is exactly that same Torah itself. It is simply clothed in garments relevant in each place. So let’s look for a moment at the author of the Tanya, chapter 4: Every divine soul has three garments, namely thought, speech, and action of the 613 commandments of the Torah. When a person fulfills in action all the practical commandments, and in speech he studies the explanation of all 613 commandments and their laws, and in thought he comprehends all that he can comprehend in the hidden orchard of Torah, then all 613 limbs of his soul are clothed in the 613 commandments of the Torah, and specifically the faculty of intellect in his soul is clothed in his comprehension of Torah that he comprehends in the hidden orchard according to his capacity of comprehension and the root of his soul above. And the emotions, which are love and fear, and so on. In other words, the Torah here is clothed in different garments, which is exactly in the same sense I was speaking about earlier. These garments are thought, speech, and action, and this is the clothing of the selfsame thing. Thought, say, is the idea, the abstract thing, and it gets clothed in speech—we put it into verbal language, a verbal representation of that thought—and then action, meaning you have to do it with the limbs of the body. Those are the garments. Let’s read a bit more in the Tanya. I’m moving to the next paragraph, where he says that in truth one cannot cleave to the Holy One, blessed be He, except through garments. That parallels what I said earlier, that you can’t grasp things except if you clothe them in garments accessible to you. Like the electromagnetic wave—I can’t grasp it unless I translate it into terms of light. That is, then I understand what it is, then I grasp it. And the Holy One, blessed be He, contracted His will and wisdom into the 613 commandments of the Torah and their laws, and into the combinations of the letters of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and their interpretations in the aggadic literature and midrashim of our sages, of blessed memory, so that every soul, spirit, and life-force in the human body would be able to grasp them in its knowledge. Exactly so—we grasp the thing or perceive the thing by clothing it in a garment relevant to us, and on all levels: thought, speech, and action, and to fulfill them in whatever can be fulfilled in action, speech, and thought. And through this all ten of its faculties become clothed in these three garments. Therefore the Torah is likened to water: just as water descends from a high place to a low place, so the Torah descended from its place of honor, which is His will and wisdom, blessed be He; and the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are entirely one, and thought cannot grasp Him at all; and from there it traveled and descended through the chain of levels, from level to level in the development of the worlds, until it became clothed in physical things and matters of this world, which are most of the commandments of the Torah, nearly all of them, and their laws, in combinations of physical letters. There is clothing in letters, clothing in actions, clothing in ideas, clothing in words. Every such thing is a certain type of garment: the twenty-four books of Torah, Prophets, and Writings, so that every thought can grasp them, and even speech and action, which are lower than the level of thought, can grasp them and become clothed in them. But the Holy One, blessed be He, in His glory and essence, thought cannot grasp Him at all, except when it grasps and becomes clothed in His Torah and commandments; then it grasps them and becomes clothed in the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, for the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are entirely one. And although the Torah became clothed in low physical things, this is like embracing the king, by way of analogy—there is no difference in the quality of one’s closeness and cleaving to the king whether one embraces him when he is wearing one garment or when he is wearing many garments, since the body of the king is within them. And likewise if the king embraces him, and so on. So what is he really saying? I think it’s just a translation of what I said before: when I embrace the king in his garments, when I grasp the Torah in human terms, in its human garments, that doesn’t mean this isn’t the real Torah, that I didn’t grasp it, that I didn’t embrace the king. I embrace the king through his garments. More than that: without garments at all you can’t embrace the king. The king without garments isn’t accessible to us. We must have garments. And therefore he speaks of one garment or three; of no garments at all, he doesn’t speak. There is no embrace without garments. You can embrace through one garment, you can embrace through three, but there is no difference between them; in the end you are embracing the king. Or translated into my terms: in the end you are grasping exactly the electromagnetic wave. That is not a limitation. The fact that you clothe it in the language of light and this feature and that feature—that’s perfectly fine, because that’s how you grasp it. But without that you can’t grasp the thing. Yet with that, it’s not true that you don’t grasp the thing itself but only some reflection of it. That is how one grasps the thing itself; that is what it means to grasp the thing. That’s basically the meaning of clothing. Within this he naturally introduces further garments: he speaks of thought, speech, and action. By the way, thought, speech, and action—all three are garments. So what lies beyond that? Beyond thought, speech, and action, above them—and that is not the thing itself, only a garment. Seemingly thought is the thing itself; speech and action are garments. No—even thought is speech. Thought is speech, in the sense that when I think, say, about the ideas of the Torah—we study Torah, think about all sorts of ideas, more abstract, less abstract—that’s some kind of garment, because the abstract Torah I spoke of before is a Torah that among the angels, for example, looks completely different. So there is actually something beyond thought. Thought too is a kind of garment. Maybe I’ve just remembered another example. There was a certain German scholar named Eugen Herrigel. At the beginning of the twentieth century he came to Tokyo to visit a friend of his, a Japanese professor of law, and he asked him to learn Zen. So the friend sent him to a Zen master. He wrote a book about it called Zen in the Art of Archery. He came to that master and said: I want to learn. So the man says to him: What do you want to learn? Fencing? Flower arrangement? I don’t remember, shooting with bow and arrow? Wrestling? I don’t remember exactly. So he says: No, I want to learn Zen. And the man says: Yes, yes, I understand. Fencing, flower arrangement, and so on. What’s the point of this? He says that these are basically four different ways to learn the same thing. In the end, whether through flower arrangement, or fencing, or whatever, you learn the same thing itself. The medium or garment, what I called it earlier, changes. I can clothe it in the garment of rules of fencing, or rules of archery, or rules of arranging flowers. But those rules—you’re not learning the art of arranging flowers. That is the medium within which I put this abstract thing that I want to teach you. And it isn’t dependent on the medium. Now when you learn flower arrangement in this way, it will of course be, I assume—I’ve never been there—but I assume it will be how to arrange, what to do before, what to do after, how to use different kinds of flowers, and so on—which are all techniques and principles of flower arrangement. So that is thought, yes, the ideas. But the ideas too are a garment. A garment for what? For that abstract thing that he really wants to convey through this medium, which is shared by flower arranging, fencing, and the other things. In that sense, I’m saying, thought too is a garment. It’s a garment in the sense that it is not the highest thing; there’s something above it. Now, in a faint reflection of this idea, maybe we can see it in a well-known dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim). It goes like this. In the Mishnah in Berakhot, page 15, it says: One who recites the Shema and did not make it audible to his own ear has fulfilled his obligation. Rabbi Yosi says: he has not fulfilled it. If he read and did not articulate the letters precisely, Rabbi Yosi says he fulfilled; Rabbi Yehuda says he did not. One who reads out of order—that’s less important here. So the Talmud explains: what is Rabbi Yosi’s reason? Because “you shall hear” is written. What appears in your version is only the Rashba because I had no room left. What is Rabbi Yosi’s reason? Because it says “hear”—make what comes out of your mouth audible to your ear. So he learns from the word “Hear, O Israel” that it must be heard by the ears. And the first tanna holds: “hear” means in any language that you hear. And Rabbi Yosi—where does Rabbi Yosi know from that that it means any language you hear? You hear both things from it. He learned both things from “Hear, O Israel”: both that it may be in any language that you hear and that you need to make it audible to your ears. On this the Rashba objects. He says—and this appears in your sheet—And Rabbi Yosi could say to you: from it you hear as well “in any language that you hear.” Rashi explained: you hear two things from it, for when he expounds “hear” as any language of hearing, from there too you hear that it must be audible to his ear. This is not clear to me, for from where do we know that we hear two things from it? Why should we learn two different things from one word? Usually each word teaches one law. If there is another law, it needs another source. How can two things be learned from the same word? And furthermore, that is not what “from it” means. And it appears to me to explain, says the Rashba, that this is what it means: since you expound from it “any language that you hear,” from that you automatically hear that he must make it audible to his ear. Because if not, why would the Merciful One need to permit any language that he hears? It’s obvious! For if he need not make it audible to his ear, then even mere contemplation of the heart would be permitted, as appears later with regard to one who had a seminal emission, and with contemplation of the heart, language is irrelevant. That part doesn’t appear in your version. And from this we hear that there is no insistence on Hebrew alone as opposed to all other languages. Rather, certainly, from the fact that the Merciful One needed to permit any language, we automatically hear that he must make it audible to his ear. So the Rashba says: if the Torah says that the Shema may be recited in any language, then clearly it must be made audible to the ear. That doesn’t need a separate source; it’s not another law. It follows automatically, as Rashi says, automatically. Why? Because if it didn’t need to be audible to the ear, and the law concerned only contemplation, then language doesn’t apply to contemplation. Thoughts aren’t done in language. If the law concerns contemplation and you need not make it audible to your ear, then it makes no sense to say I want it in this language or that language. And then there would be no need to tell me that it is valid in any language, that it can be in any language. If there’s a need to tell me the law that it can be in any language, then automatically that tells me that this thing requires not merely contemplation but being made audible to the ear. In other words, the Rashba assumes that thoughts are not conducted verbally—at least that is the plain sense of his words—and on that the Sha’agat Aryeh already comments. The Hazon Ish in several places explains it in several ways. Sha’agat Aryeh responsum 7—do you have it? No, I omitted it, never mind, I’ll just read the beginning: And moreover, the main point of the Rashba is puzzling, for certainly language applies to contemplation as well: whether one must contemplate specifically in Hebrew, or whether contemplation in any language suffices. And there is no logic at all to distinguish between contemplation and speech in this regard. So what if it’s contemplation? Even contemplation has language, says the Sha’agat Aryeh. After that he also brings some proof, but let’s leave it. In other words, the Sha’agat Aryeh doesn’t understand what the Rashba wants. Obviously when we contemplate, we contemplate in words, so even in contemplation it makes sense to ask whether a specific language is required or any language is acceptable. Why does the Rashba assume that if this is a law of contemplation then language is irrelevant here? There is a Tosafot in Shabbat 40b—it also doesn’t appear in your version, I’ll read it: And if you should say that he said it in a non-sacred language—it doesn’t matter, the issue there concerns speaking words of Torah—and even so contemplation is forbidden, perhaps we should say that contemplation is forbidden only in Hebrew, but he contemplated in another language. In other words, yes, one could have said that that person contemplated where contemplation in Hebrew is forbidden, sorry, that he contemplated in another language, and what is forbidden is contemplation in Hebrew, but in another language contemplation is allowed. Then the Rashash there immediately notices this Tosafot and says there, the Rashash on Shabbat 40: From here there is proof for the Sha’agat Aryeh in responsum 7, where he objected to the Rashba who wrote that language does not apply to contemplation. Yes, Tosafot here really goes with the Sha’agat Aryeh. Tosafot basically says that language applies even to contemplation. And then some later authorities want to infer that there is a dispute between Tosafot and the Rashba on the question of whether, when we contemplate, when we think, we do so verbally, or whether thought is something not done in speech. Now it seems to me that to take this literally is quite difficult, as the Sha’agat Aryeh already points out. It’s pretty obvious that we can think in words. I don’t think the Rashba is disputing this simple fact that a person can think in words. It seems to me that what the Rashba is saying here is a normative statement, not a factual one. The Rashba says that if there is some law that is a law concerning contemplation, concerning thought, and not speech, then clearly it refers to thought on its abstract level and not to verbalized thought. There is verbalized thought even according to the Rashba, but when there is a law dealing with thought, that law is not speaking about the verbal layer of thought but about the content of the thought, the more abstract meaning. Okay? And it seems to me that this is the Rashba’s intention. Then of course the Sha’agat Aryeh’s objection falls away, but there is still a dispute between Tosafot and the Rashba on the question of what the Torah’s laws concern when the Torah speaks about thought. Can there be a law about thought that deals with verbalized thought? Tosafot says yes, and the Rashba says no: if there is a law about thought and not speech, then it certainly concerns the higher level of thought, before it is clothed in words, before it has passed into its verbal representation. Therefore it seems to me entirely possible that both the Rashba and Tosafot agree that thought has two levels. There is the abstract level, the ideas themselves, and there is their verbal representation, and that too can exist within thought. Their disagreement is on the question: when there is a halakhic law concerning thought, which of the two levels does it address? What does it refer to—the abstract thought or its verbal expression? Okay, so here we see another example of thought being clothed in words. Meaning, if before we had the abstract Torah—something, I don’t know, I don’t know how to describe it—and now I can also understand why. Description always requires language. When someone asks me, wait, describe the electromagnetic wave in itself, you can’t. Every description is always saying what it does in a particular clothing, in a certain language. So that’s a meaningless question: describe the electromagnetic wave itself. And exactly the same way, you can’t say: please tell me what that abstract Torah means before it was clothed. What is that? Any answer to the question “what is it?” will be an answer already clothed. In other words, you can’t answer that kind of question. I can answer what it looks like in this garment or that garment; maybe I can answer that, but that’s at most what I can do. So there is the abstract thing. Then there is thought at its higher level. Thought at its higher level is already clothed. And this is what we saw the author of the Tanya say: thought itself is already a garment. Thought, speech, and action—all three are garments, not the thing itself. Why? Because the thing itself is the abstract thing. Thought is already a garment. Why? Because when I think, say, about the commandment of honoring father and mother, then the content of the commandment of honoring father and mother—that is the abstract thought. The verbal formulation is “Honor your father and your mother,” which is of course the clothing of that content in language, in Hebrew, a language I can also speak in thought. But when I say it in thought, that is already a second garment, because it is clothed in words. There is the first garment, which is thought—that one should honor father and mother, or not desecrate the Sabbath, or things of that kind. That thought is clothed in speech, and it can still happen within thought itself, at the lower level of thought—that is the verbal representation of thought. That is the second garment. And the third garment is action. But for our purposes I’ll add another garment or two. After it is clothed in words, of course it can be expressed in words. Then I actually speak it. When I speak it, I’m not sure I’ve succeeded in getting out exactly what I was thinking. We don’t always manage to express with our mouths what we thought—maybe even what we thought verbally. Maybe—and that’s an interesting question in itself—because even the verbal, from the stage where I think the verbal formulation to the stage where I say the verbal formulation, there’s already some gap, and certainly when I write. If I write it, then that is the most constricted clothing there is, because then all you have are the words. When I speak these things, even if I’m saying something verbal, there is body language, there are connotations, tones, intonation, things like that, so I can convey a much richer fullness than in writing. Writing is just the words themselves, that’s it; you have nothing more than the words themselves. Therefore the clothing in words has three levels: the words as I think them, the words as I say them, and the words as they are written. So within the clothing in words there are already three sub-garments, three layers of verbal clothing. And after that there is of course also practical clothing. This gap between verbal clothing and practical clothing is really the subject of an interesting essay by Bialik, called “Disclosure and Concealment in Language.” Maybe I’ll read a few sentences: At what are we to wonder? At that feeling of confidence and that peace of mind that accompany a person in his speech, as if he were truly conveying his thought or feeling calmly across, over a bridge of iron. And he does not imagine at all how rickety that bridge of words is, how deep and dark the abyss yawning beneath it, and how much of a miracle there is in every peaceful step. For it is clear that language, in all its combinations, does not bring us at all into the inner domain, the complete essence of things; rather, on the contrary, it itself stands as a barrier before them. In a certain sense, verbal representation blocks us; it doesn’t allow us to grasp the things themselves. There is an inherent gap between verbal representation and the thing represented by the words. And as I said earlier, this is true of every garment. There is also a great gap between the abstract thing and its representation in thought, or between representation in thought and representation in words, and between words and writing. Every such descent involves some gap, which, as I said before, may mean we completely miss the point. Or that we use the same words to describe a content that is entirely different, like the philosophers’ palace I mentioned before. Therefore these gaps are somehow unavoidable. Every such step is basically another disconnection between us and the source that is clothed. And so on. That is Bialik’s point. The next step, then, is: how do we nevertheless bridge the gap between speech or writing and the ideas expressed in them? In speech and in writing. Here there is the claim that the Nazir Rabbi speaks about in his book Kol HaNevuah, at the beginning there in section 26, I think, 26 and onward, where he argues—these are famous things, Nachmanides already speaks about it—that there is a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim) about how to understand the uniqueness of the holy tongue, Hebrew. Maimonides, in The Guide for the Perplexed, when he speaks about the holy tongue, says—I think it appears in your version, or maybe not? No. Fine. So Maimonides says: I too have a reason and cause for our language being called the holy tongue. And do not think this is exaggeration on our part or an error, but it is true, because in this holy tongue there was no original term at all designated for the sexual organ, neither of male nor female, nor for the act itself that brings about generation, nor for semen, nor for emission. For all these matters there is no original term at all in the Hebrew language. Rather they are referred to by borrowed names and hints. The intention in this was that these matters are not fitting to mention by giving them names; rather they are things that one ought to be silent about, and when necessity requires mentioning them one should devise a strategy of euphemisms from other words, just as we refrain from doing them, when necessary, as much as we can. So Maimonides says that Hebrew is called the holy tongue because it has no terms for the organs of generation. It preserves clean speech, let’s say. Nachmanides, in his commentary in the Torah portion Ki Tisa, cites Maimonides’ words and disagrees with him, arguing that it is called the holy tongue because the Holy One, blessed be He, uses it, and not because of some technical point, that it lacks certain terms or because it is refined language. What still is not stated fully is what the Nazir Rabbi brings there in the name of several kabbalists, and Mendelssohn too, I think, wrote something similar—he cites it there—that the holy tongue has some kind of direct relation to the contents it expresses. That is, the Holy One, blessed be He, using Hebrew is unique as compared with all other languages. In Tomer Devorah by Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, he brings this somewhere: that all languages are conventional. Conventional in the sense that there is no direct connection between the verbal expression and the content that this verbal expression expresses; rather, we agree—there is some agreement, some convention—this is called a chair, that is called a table, we build some rules of language and create a language. By contrast, in Hebrew, the claim of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero is that there is some essential connection between the content and the speech. Meaning, someone who decodes the verbal expression correctly will find no gap between it and the content clothed in the speech. Yes, that gap Bialik spoke of, that I described earlier, between the content and the verbal garment of that content, disappears in the holy tongue. That is the uniqueness of Hebrew as opposed to all other languages. But of course that is when the Holy One, blessed be He, uses it, when He writes the Torah. When we use Hebrew, it seems to me one should not relate to it that way. There is still a gap between what we want to say and the verbal expression of it. The Nazir Rabbi himself brings two halakhic implications of this. Maimonides in the laws of reciting the Shema writes: A person may recite the Shema in any language that he understands, and one who recites it in any language must be careful about distortions in that language and precise in that language just as one is precise in the holy tongue. Shema in any language—that’s what we saw earlier, Rabbi Yosi there in the Mishnah. But one must be precise exactly as one is precise in Hebrew. On this the Ra’avad says: A person may recite the Shema etc.—Abraham says: this is not acceptable to reason, because all languages are interpretations, and who is so exacting about an interpretation? Translating into another language is interpretation. Why is it relevant to be exacting about the wording of the interpretation? What difference does it make? After all, in the end the interpretation preserves only the content. I transmit the content as best I can, but there is no holiness in the wording, in the words. What is the point of being exacting with letters and words when we are speaking about a translation? So claims the Ra’avad. The Nazir Rabbi says: they are each consistent with their own position. The Ra’avad, by the way, in his commentary to Sefer Yetzirah—and I think elsewhere too—also disagrees with Maimonides in his understanding of the holy tongue. And the Nazir Rabbi’s claim is that Maimonides understands that Hebrew too is like this. There is no essential difference between it and other languages. So if one has to be exact here, one has to be exact there too. And why? Maybe to express some respect for the matter, so you need to be exact in the language; but not really because if you’re not exact you will miss something. Because in the end, if it expresses the content correctly, then it expresses the content; what difference does it make in what exact formulation you said it? But the Ra’avad, who understands that the formulation in Hebrew contains something beyond the content conveyed in it—that is, if you translate it into another language, something will be missed, it won’t fully convey it—then the Ra’avad says: every translation is an interpretation, and who would be exacting about an interpretation? What sense does it make to be exacting in a language that is not the holy tongue? This is a very clear conception of Hebrew as something that not only expresses ideas or content, but where the way the content is formulated has importance—not only the content we chose to formulate, which could also have been formulated differently. Also in the laws of the Scroll of Esther, there the Maggid Mishneh says: If one read it in translation, in any language, he did not fulfill the obligation; but one may read it to foreign-language speakers in their foreign language. And Rashi explained: foreign-language speakers who know another language that is not the holy tongue. And it appears from his words that even if one knows Assyrian script, meaning Hebrew, and knows the foreign language, if he wanted to read it in the foreign language, he would fulfill his obligation. And this seems to be the view of our Rabbi, Maimonides. But this does not appear so from the Jerusalem Talmud, where they said: one who knows the foreign language and knows Assyrian script, may he discharge others in the foreign language? No. But he brings the Jerusalem Talmud that does not seem to say so. What is the meaning of this distinction? With Hebrew you can fulfill your obligation even if you don’t understand the language, but with another language you can fulfill it only if you understand it. Because in another language the main thing is the content; if the content has come through to you, then you’ve fulfilled your obligation. But in Hebrew, even if you don’t understand the content, there is something in the formulation itself that goes beyond the content that that formulation expresses. This really brings us back to the beginning. Everything up till now was an introduction. Because this means there is some essential difference between Written Torah and Oral Torah. In Written Torah there is significance to the way it is worded. We are exacting about its letters, we expound them. In other words, there is something not only tied to the content; the words themselves have some significance. The verbal expression has importance or holiness in its own right. If we propose another verbal expression for the same content, it won’t be the same thing. Written Torah that is translated is not Written Torah. But Oral Torah isn’t like that. Oral Torah—the Talmudic text—if someone translates the Talmud into English, it is just as holy as the Talmud in Aramaic or in Hebrew translation, it doesn’t matter, as long as we preserve the content. Because Oral Torah in its essence is content, not formulations. The contents don’t have to be clothed in a formulation, or when they are clothed in one, that clothing is incidental. The formulation has no role in itself, no significance in itself, except as expressing the content. Therefore if you formulate it differently, no problem. But with Written Torah, if you formulate differently what is written there, you have lost its holiness. You learned the Torah, interpreted it, but it is not the holiness of Written Torah; it is something else. Because Written Torah is the holiness of the wording or the writing, while Oral Torah is the holiness of the content. Therefore the Talmud in Gittin says: Rabbi Yehuda bar Nachmani, the interpreter of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, expounded: It is written, “Write for yourself these words,” and it is written, “For according to these words”—how can this be? Matters that are written you are not permitted to say orally; matters that are oral you are not permitted to write. Yes, the well-known law that one may not say Written Torah orally and may not write Oral Torah. Why is it forbidden to say Written Torah orally? So in the Tur, section 49, there in Orach Chayim, discussing how we say the sacrificial passages in the morning service, the Tur says there is no concern because we know those verses well by heart, or the Shema, and therefore one may say them even though there is a prohibition against saying written matters orally. So the problem is confusion. And what is the problem if we get confused? I assume the content we can still say; the problem is that this isn’t the correct wording. And Written Torah, its essence is the holiness of the wording itself, not the content that wording expresses. By contrast, with Oral Torah there is certainly no problem saying it orally, since as long as you say the correct content there is no problem. I don’t care about the wording. Here the wording is unimportant; the content is what matters. More than that, here it says there is even a prohibition against writing Oral Torah, which is another question, but one possible explanation is the opposite: so that people will not think that Oral Torah has holiness of wording. That may be why it was forbidden to write Oral Torah, because the holiness of Oral Torah is holiness of content and not of wording, and therefore perhaps they forbade writing it. How does all this connect to us with Purim? Purim stands right on the seam, both historically and essentially, between prophecy and wisdom, because it is the beginning of the Second Temple period. The last prophets were still in the Men of the Great Assembly, and immediately after that the era of Oral Torah begins. So this transition from prophecy to wisdom is a transition from Written Torah to Oral Torah, because the books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) basically end around then, and Oral Torah begins. Therefore Purim is situated there. There are several places—in Tanchuma on Noah, and the Maharal also speaks about this in several places—that “they established and accepted” on Purim refers to Oral Torah. The Talmud expounds it about willing acceptance after coercion, but there are parallel midrashim that talk about Oral Torah as opposed to Written Torah. And the Maharal explains that accepting the laws of Purim and the Scroll of Esther is really the acceptance of Oral Torah, because we accepted upon ourselves laws not written in the Torah as binding, as Torah. And since that is so, this is really the acceptance of Oral Torah. It seems to me that from a somewhat historical perspective one can say that this whole notion of two Torahs given to Moses at Sinai is a kind of anachronistic expression. I think that in the period up to the beginning of what we call the era of Oral Torah, people did not relate to it as two Torahs, but as Torah and its interpretation. That is, the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the Torah and of course explained what was written in it, what the words mean. When you give a text, you have to explain what it says—that’s obvious. At the beginning of the Second Temple period a completely different conception begins. Oral Torah is not just interpretations of Written Torah. Oral Torah is a Torah created by human beings. And a Torah created by human beings—that is almost inconceivable, to call such a thing Torah. Right? In Pirkei Avot we say: Moses received Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, the elders to the prophets, the prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly, and so on. Shimon the Righteous was of the last survivors of the Men of the Great Assembly. He would say… I once heard a Jew ask: and until him nobody said anything? Only he would say? What did Moses say? What did Joshua say? The elders, the prophets, the Men of the Great Assembly? Shimon the Righteous, one of the last survivors of the Men of the Great Assembly—he would say. And until him nobody said anything? The answer is: until him, the consciousness was—obviously they said things—but the consciousness was one of transmission. He received and transmitted, received and transmitted; we are a hollow channel. Torah is what was given to Moses at Sinai. Shimon the Righteous opens the era of Oral Torah, in which Torah is generated by human beings—“he would say,” meaning this is Torah that he said. And it is still Torah. This is what characterizes the Second Temple era. Then this other outlook really begins, saying that we have two Torahs, Written Torah and Oral Torah, and both are Torah. Even though one is created by human beings—yes, Maimonides’ view regarding midrashim in the second root, where he says that the derashot don’t expose what is already inside the verse, but extend beyond what is written in the verse. Meaning, even derashot are suddenly understood not as deciphering or uncovering what is in Written Torah, but as Torah created by sages, new Torah, Torah created by human beings. This was very hard to digest. A great many midrashim and teachings of the sages in stories like the Oven of Akhnai and all those matters are grappling with this, grappling with the conception current until then that Torah is what was given to Moses at Sinai. And what human beings invent is not Torah. Even today many people think that way: what people invent is not Torah, and therefore Moses received everything that a veteran student would someday innovate, and so on. We always have to explain that it is Torah because Moses already received it. Because it is hard for people to digest the fact that things created by people are also considered Torah. That is the battle around the Oven of Akhnai I mentioned, around the deposition of Rabban Gamliel—you can see it in many places in the Talmud. In my opinion it’s all around this issue: to found or institutionalize this attitude that we have two Torahs, and both have the same status. Both were given to Moses at Sinai, at least in principle. They have the same status, the same holiness. And yet one of them has holiness of wording, and the other has holiness of content but not wording. Because human beings formulated the wording of their ideas. So there is no holiness of wording. It doesn’t matter how the Talmud is formulated; what matters is what it says. Therefore we are not exacting about the Talmud the way we are exacting about the Torah. Because the Talmud is a kind of formulation of the ideas; okay, it can be formulated in various ways. The holiness is the holiness of the content. Now I come back to the Scroll of Esther. The Scroll of Esther is really the opening toward this next clothing. Torah that becomes clothed in human beings, and the ideas begin to be formulated, brought forth by human beings, and still count as Torah. This clothing is about to begin now, at the start of the Second Temple period, and the Scroll of Esther, or what happens around it, seems to me at least, to prepare or pave the way toward that stage. Let’s see this in a few respects. First of all, in tractate Megillah page 7: Rav Shmuel bar Yehuda said: Esther sent to the sages, “Establish me for future generations.” Yes, meaning establish the festival and the scroll. Establish me for future generations, meaning that it should be joined to Written Torah—again a very strange thing on first thought, and according to the way people thought until then. How could a festival established by sages be added? What is this? They made up a festival out of their own hearts. This is really adding to the Torah. How can a festival that sages add join the list of biblical festivals? So Esther asks them: yes, I want a festival that we, the sages of that generation, establish, and that this be joined to the list of biblical festivals and to the practices and laws accompanying it. Then she says: “Establish me for future generations.” They sent back to her: you arouse the jealousy of the nations, and so on. Yes, in the end they answered her, and apparently accepted it, because we do have Purim. Esther sent to the sages: “Write me for future generations.” What is this? Now this is the transition not from biblical festivals to rabbinic festivals or festivals that are human creations, but to the mode in which Torah appears. “Write me for future generations” means: include me too in Written Torah, which is about to end. We are at the end of the period of Written Torah, meaning including the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), yes, Writings and Prophets and Writings, and Esther still wants to be included there, still wants to join there, because otherwise it isn’t Torah. Otherwise it won’t be Torah. There’s no such thing as Torah created by human beings. Torah is only something that is part of the corpus of prophecy and the Prophets and Writings. So she says: “Write me for future generations,” and then the sages engage there in some pilpul that needs clarification. In any case they don’t want to agree, and in the end they derive some scriptural exposition showing that the Scroll of Esther can nevertheless be written. Meaning Esther basically wants to attach herself to the previous period: the festival should be like biblical festivals, and the book should be like the written biblical books. In other words, she herself is not yet ready to accept that content has significance even if it is not written within a book, even if it is not clothed in words and turned into something fixed like Written Torah. There is an expression later in the Talmud there: Rav Yehuda said in the name of Shmuel: Esther does not render the hands impure. Meaning, they wrote Esther, but it does not render the hands impure. It is not a holy book in the full sense. Does this imply that Shmuel holds that Esther was not said with divine inspiration? What is the meaning of this question? The criterion of whether it renders the hands impure is whether it was said with divine inspiration. Because if it was said with divine inspiration, then it is Torah from the Holy One, blessed be He, and if so then it is Torah, it renders the hands impure, it is a holy book, everything is fine. But if it is words of wisdom or words of Torah created by human beings, then it can’t be holy; it does not render the hands impure. Therefore we now have to examine whether Esther was said with divine inspiration or not, in order to know whether it is part of the holy writings. Then a whole discussion begins: Shmuel said Esther was said with divine inspiration, with all kinds of proofs. But in the middle there appears an objection: Rabbi Meir says Ecclesiastes does not render the hands impure, and there is a dispute concerning Song of Songs, and so on. It was taught: Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya says Ecclesiastes does not render the hands impure because it is the wisdom of Solomon. What is this? Again the same issue. If these are not words that descended from above, they are not Torah—or at least not Torah in the full sense—it can’t be Torah, it is the wisdom of Solomon. What do we rule in practice, by the way? Look at Maimonides, the laws of the other primary categories of impurity. I brought this Maimonides, right? Yes, concerning impurity and tefillin and so on. At the end he says: And not only words of Torah, but all holy writings—even Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, which are words of wisdom—render the hands impure. Yes? Even Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, which are words of wisdom. The Talmud says that if they are words of wisdom they do not render the hands impure. What renders the hands impure? Only what was said with divine inspiration. And about Esther there is a discussion whether it was said with divine inspiration, and then it renders the hands impure, or not. Maimonides doesn’t mention Esther at all, and he says all words of Torah render the hands impure, including Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, even though they are words of wisdom. He accepts that they are words of wisdom. But what’s the point? We are already in the era of Oral Torah. In the era of Oral Torah, even words of wisdom have the status of Torah, even though they did not descend from above—“it is the wisdom of Solomon,” as the Talmud says. It did not descend from above in the full sense, I mean; the wording was not dictated to Solomon the way it was dictated to Moses. Nevertheless this is called Torah. Up until that stage it was not called Torah, because until that stage the conception of Torah was only what descends from above. From then on, Torah can also be human creation. The same thing with saving from a fire. The same process occurs again: holy writings are saved from a fire—that’s in the Mishnah in Shabbat. The plain sense of the sugya seems to be that rescue from a fire depends on it being a holy book. Therefore the Talmud discusses there a Torah scroll from which only eighty-five letters remain, and exactly how—do we save it from a fire or not. Fine. And what does the Mishnah Berurah tell us—jumping to the end of the road—that in Maimonides you see that the conception is still that only holy books are saved. In Maimonides the conception remains that way. In the Shulchan Arukh there is already a difference—even in any language. Maimonides does not accept that in any language, while the Shulchan Arukh does. But regarding the Scroll of Esther he brings that some say yes and some say no. And the Mishnah Berurah there writes in the name of the Magen Avraham: The Magen Avraham noted that all this was only in Talmudic times, when it was forbidden to save it unless it was written according to law, since it was not permitted to write it and study from it. But nowadays, since because of “it is a time to act for the Lord” it was permitted to write and study from it, even if it is written on paper or in any language, automatically it is saved from a fire. The fact that it was permitted to write it doesn’t make it a holy book. But at the stage when it was permitted to be written, that is the stage when it was decided that written contents can also receive holiness, though originally the holiness was holiness of content and not of wording. Once you wrote it in a book, then it is a wording that has received some kind of stamp, and certainly if it was said with divine inspiration, like the Scroll of Esther, then that thing becomes holy even though the holiness at root is holiness of content, sorry, and not of wording. Where do we see this best? Shulchan Arukh section 690: One must read all of it, and from writing. If he read it orally, he has not fulfilled his obligation. And ideally the whole of it should be written before him. But after the fact, if the scribe omitted words from the middle, even up to half of it, and the reader read them orally, he fulfilled his obligation. Here there is some dispute whether one must read every part from writing, but what is clear is that the scroll itself—this is quite amazing—one has to listen to every word. Someone who misses a word has not fulfilled the obligation. But the book itself can be missing half the words. And of course it has to be read from writing—you have to read from writing, and one has to hear every word—but the book itself can be missing half the words. Make up your mind: if it’s a book and it must be read from writing, let it be a complete book, and then when I read, I read everything that is written. How can it be that I have to hear every word, but half the words in the book can be missing, in the middle or on the sides? I won’t go into the halakhic details. What is the meaning of this? It seems to me this is exactly the expression of the point that the Scroll of Esther is not a book. Esther asked the sages, “Write me for future generations.” The sages did not fully grant that. It can be written, but it won’t become a book. It is not a Torah scroll. The Scroll of Esther is half Oral Torah. It is not fully Written Torah; it is something in between, an intermediate stage, the transition from Written Torah to Oral Torah. So in terms of wording, Esther was said with divine inspiration. The wording is holy. Every word written in the scroll must be heard in order to fulfill the obligation. But as a book—let it be written even half-complete—that doesn’t matter, because it never turned into a book. And the sages in the Talmud do indeed say: the megillah is called a book and is called a letter. Yes: Rav Chelbo said that Rav Chama bar Gurya said in the name of Rav—Megillah 19, yes, it appears in your version—the megillah is called a book and is called a letter. It is called a book, in that if one stitched it with linen threads it is invalid; and it is called a letter, in that if one attached it with three sinew threads it is valid, provided they are spaced properly. So what is written here? That it is called a book and called a letter. It is something between a book and a letter. What is the difference between a book and a letter? A letter is something whose purpose is to convey content. I send someone a letter, he reads it, understands the content I wanted to convey, and then he throws it in the trash. There is no significance to the written object itself; it conveys content. A book is something that remains. It has significance in itself, not only in terms of the content written in it. The Scroll of Esther is not fully a book; it is called a book and called a letter, and there is a practical implication. One practical implication is brought here. The medieval authorities discuss others, but the Talmud implies there is only one practical implication, only regarding stitching with three sinews. Why? Make it completely like a Torah scroll—what’s the problem? If you’ve already decided to make it exactly like a Torah scroll—on parchment, with ink, and everything—then with the sinews too already. Why specifically leave this law different? It seems to me the sages want to tell us deliberately: no, there is a halakhic difference between the Scroll of Esther and a Torah scroll, because the Scroll of Esther is written content; it is not a book. Its holiness at root is holiness of content, not holiness of the book. Therefore they want to leave some halakhic distinction between a Torah scroll and the Scroll of Esther. Maybe the clearest place to see this—though of course those responsible for this are our rabbis from Brisk—is in the famous sugya about ruled lines, sirtut. The Talmud says, in Megillah 16b: “Words of peace and truth”—Rabbi Tanchum said, and some say Rav Assi said: this teaches that it requires ruled lines like the truth of Torah itself. This formulation is already strange. “It requires ruled lines like the truth of Torah itself”? It should say: it requires ruled lines like a Torah scroll. Of course this is because of “words of peace and truth,” but why this odd formulation? So Rashi there writes: “like the truth of Torah itself”—like a Torah scroll itself; ruled lines are a law given to Moses at Sinai. And in a Torah scroll ruled lines are a law given to Moses at Sinai, and “words of peace and truth” comes to tell me that the megillah requires ruled lines like a Torah scroll. Tosafot in several places, in slightly different forms, raises a difficulty against Rashi. Tosafot argues that if Rashi is right, that we learn it from a Torah scroll, then it could already have been learned from the fact that it is called a book, like the other laws of a Torah scroll. Why do we need a special exposition from “words of peace and truth”? Seemingly, like all other laws of a Torah scroll, ruled lines too should be learned from there. Therefore Tosafot disagrees with Rashi and says that a Torah scroll does not require ruled lines, and Rabbenu Tam says it does—never mind, it’s a long sugya and later authorities discussed it at great length. Maimonides follows Rashi’s view. Maimonides says there is a law given to Moses at Sinai that one does not write a Torah scroll or mezuzah except with ruled lines. So there is also a law given to Moses at Sinai in a Torah scroll. Again Tosafot’s question returns: if so, why not learn it for the Scroll of Esther from the Torah scroll because it is called a book? Why specifically from “words of peace and truth”? Look also at Maimonides’ wording when he brings this law. He says: One writes the megillah only in ink, on prepared hide or on parchment, like a Torah scroll. And then he continues: and it requires ruled lines like Torah itself. He should have said: one writes the megillah only in ink, on prepared hide or on parchment, with ruled lines, like a Torah scroll. What’s the problem? No. All the other laws he tells you are “like a Torah scroll,” except that it requires ruled lines “like Torah itself.” So Rav Chaim says in the stencil, and the Brisker Rav in the laws of the Scroll of Esther, that the law of ruled lines is not a law in the book but a law in the content. When you write holy content—the Talmud in Gittin says that Mar Ukva ruled lines for verses he sent in a letter of greeting—so this is not a law in a book; it is a law in writing holy content. When you write holy content, you need ruled lines to give it honor or something like that; you need ruled lines. So too here: “it requires ruled lines like the truth of Torah itself,” says the Talmud, or “like Torah itself,” as Maimonides says. The point is: it requires ruled lines because of the content within it. This is not one of the laws of a book. Therefore, this is how he answers Tosafot’s objection: it cannot be learned from the fact that the megillah is called a book, because it is not a book. So what is the Scroll of Esther? The Scroll of Esther is holy written content. And what the sages are telling us is that holy written content requires ruled lines. Not for nothing did they state this specifically in the laws of the Scroll of Esther, even though ruled lines also apply to a Torah scroll and mezuzah and tefillin. Why specifically here did they phrase it this way? To teach us that the law of ruled lines in those other places is no different. The obligating law of ruled lines in the megillah shows us that this is not a law in a book, but a law in holy content that is written. So by extension, in the other places too where ruled lines are required, that is the issue. Why did they teach it specifically in the context of the megillah? Because that is the essence of the megillah. The megillah is holy written content; it is not a book. The Jerusalem Talmud brings that the Scroll of Esther was even given to be expounded, so that its wording was said with divine inspiration. In the Scroll of Esther there is indeed precision of wording, unlike Oral Torah, and yet it is not a book in the full sense, but holy written content. And there is significance to its being written, but the product is not a book. In other words, there is no law of book-holiness here. If I return to my opening point, perhaps the process of writing, or the clothing of Torah in Purim, makes another significant step in the transition from content to writing, to words and to writing, and suddenly a consciousness emerges that even content created by human beings can be Torah. There are two Torahs, Written Torah and Oral Torah. And that is what Esther asks for in “Write me for future generations.” They say to her: don’t worry—even if we don’t write it as Torah, since there is another Torah too, there is Oral Torah. This is the opening of Oral Torah, and therefore in the future, Maimonides writes in the laws of the Scroll of Esther—famously following the Jerusalem Talmud—that all the books of the Prophets and all the Writings are destined to be nullified in the days of the Messiah, except for the Scroll of Esther. It will remain like the Five Books of the Torah and like the laws of Oral Torah, which will never be nullified. So what is never nullified? The Torah scroll, whose wording is exact from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He; and the laws of Oral Torah, because that is holiness of content, and content is never nullified. What is nullified? The formulations trying to subordinate the content. Because in a perfected future world we will no longer need clothing in words in order to understand that content has significance. We learn that lesson from the Scroll of Esther. Therefore the Scroll of Esther too will not be nullified, like the Five Books of the Torah and like the laws of Oral Torah. There’s a passage I found at the end, and with this I’ll maybe finish, from Rabbi Kook. “The entire intellectual world, with all its branches, down to the very lowest end of all levels, which include all existence as a whole, alternate between times silent and times speaking. Yes, sometimes it is the idea, sometimes it is speaking, clothed in speech. And the uprightnesses came to arrange the order of damages joined with the foundation of piety that belongs to Avot and Berakhot; we have merited in the joy of Your height to glorify ourselves with Your inheritance, just as the roots cast a shade one upon another. And the roots need”—the roots meaning the clothing, of course, in conceptual matters—“and they need, for the sake of their harmonious organization, help from a higher source, from the spring where the primary forms come into being before they are embodied in a distinct unit. Likewise the moral contents contradict one another, each one, when clothed in words, then contradictions arise; each one builds its world in a broad, radical form and is not at all concerned with that worldly image and those tendencies of the other moral contents.” Fine. “And only from there the blessings flow,” and so on. Actually I don’t have enough time to play with this, but this passage of Rabbi Kook is the result of a random generator I found on the internet, a random text generator. It has texts of Rabbi Kook; a computer wrote this. So now think about the interesting ideas written in this passage and what that means for our topic, that is, the connection between ideas and the speech that represents them, and whether it really matters that it came from a random generator—or maybe it doesn’t matter. Happy Purim.